Agenda item - Chair's Communications

135.1  The Chair gave the following communication:

I’d like to inform those present that this meeting will be webcast live and will be capable of repeated viewing.

There will be a vigil outside Hove Town Hall at 4.30pm today to express our condolences and solidarity for those in New Zealand and around the world, who have been facing a number of attacks on Muslims and Muslim places of worship. We will therefore adjourn the meeting for a short time to allow those who wish to join the vigil to do so.

Whitehawk

The Homes for Brighton & Hove partnership board meeting on Monday 18 March agreed to stop progressing plans to develop more than 200 new affordable homes on a site in the north of Whitehawk.  This followed a report identifying that the development of affordable housing would not be financially viable due to a number of access and technical difficulties on the site.

Feedback from the public consultation and some local opposition expressing concerns about the environmental impact of the proposals were also discussed by the Board. Landscape and ecology studies have shown that, with certain ecological mitigations in place, housing could be developed on the site without significant adverse impacts on the Local Nature Reserve. 

Plans for the first two Homes for Brighton & Hove proposed developments in Portslade and Coldean are progressing, and further sites are being investigated.

King Alfred

Officers have continued to work with Crest Nicholson to achieve the signing of the King Alfred Development Agreement.  Members will recall that at our January meeting authorisation was given to officers to sign the Development Agreement, but that due to Brexit uncertainty Crest were not in a position to give a definitive indication that they could sign.  They wanted to be sure that the country was going to make an orderly exit from the EU before committing significant resource into the project.  Whilst members were sympathetic about the lack of Brexit certainty, we were clear that Crest needed to give a clear commitment so the project could move on.  Therefore a deadline of the 30^th March was set for the signing of the deal.  Officers have been working hard with Crest to finalise the documentation, whilst also reminding them again of the deadline to sign.  In the meantime, also in keeping with the January resolution of this committee, officers have also begun the work around looking at alternative options to take this project forward in the event it cannot progress in its current form. Should that be the outcome, officers will bring an update on that to a future PRG meeting early in the new administration.

Waterfront

Work has also been continuing with Aberdeen Standard Investments on the Waterfront Conditional Land Acquisition Agreement, which was agreed by this committee in December.  The final version of all the documents have now been agreed, and a Voluntary Transparency (or ‘VEAT’) notice has now been issued.  This notice is intended to protect the council from future procurement challenge by being open and transparent about the form of the agreement with Aberdeen.  Once the notice’s 10 day period has passed on 5^th April we will be in a position to sign the agreement and start the process for what will be one of the most important developments in this city’s recent history.

A number of members of this committee will not be standing again at the forthcoming local elections, and I would therefore like to thank Councillors Mitchell, Sykes and Wealls for their excellent service to this committee

Item 144 ‘Brighton & Hove 2030 Vision: Update Report’ was included in the agenda in error and has therefore been withdrawn.